Playtime Essentials // 6+ Months

The other day I was asked for a post all about the toys that Amelia is loving at the moment I remembered that I had written one previously so I went back to have a read of it. It was back in March and Amelia was only 5 months old (read it here) and whilst she does still play with some of those toys she definitely has some new ones.

Now that she is so much more interactive with her environment and also very much on the move the toys she likes to play with have changed, we have bought new ones to help her development and keep her entertained so it seems like a great time to do a little update post.

Here are the toys Amelia is loving at the moment (age 6 months onwards):

Violet is affectionately known as the ugliest toy ever in our house bless her little purple heart. It’s kind of true, she has a weird face but she such a great toy. Not only is she interactive and can teach children about words, numbers, feelings and games but she’s also customisable. You can plug her into your phone and using the leapfrog website you can program your child’s name, favourite colour, food, animal and probably some other things I can’t remember.

When you baby plays with Violet she will talk to them using their name, sing songs to them about how to spell their name, make references to their favourite things (as programmed by you) so apparently Violet would like a yellow puppy called Amelia who loves to eat fruit. It’s a bit weird if you think about it too much but really it’s just about building associations which I think is great.

Violet can also play 5, 10 or 15 minutes of lullaby music and there’s also an off switch, every parents dream right!

I’m not sure this one really counts as a toy as such but Amelia is almost permanently attached to it. It’s shape is designed to help push those nasty teeth through the gums when they are teething, it’s an ideal shape for little hands to hold and there must be something magic about it because it’s a firm favourite in our house.

Books aren’t really about the words at the moment although I do read them to her she’s much more interested in chewing the corners or looking at the pictures. Peek-A-Boo books are great because they also have a mirror for baby to look at themselves in and trust me their reflection can keep them busy for a long time. Amelia likes to give herself kisses in the mirror and lick her reflection which is also very entertaining for me too.

We bought this in an attempt to keep Amelia away from our phones (it didn’t work) but it is very cute little toy anyway. It’s a little old for her according to the box (18 month+) but I think that is because it is quite heavy and the buttons can be quite tricky to press for her little fingers. She seems to do alright with it though, she can hold it confidently with two hands and she does manage to press the buttons.

As this phone is part of the My Pal range (see Violet above) you get a little dog on the screen when you press the buttons and it talks to you by counting items that dogs would like E.G. press number 3 and it will say “3 puppy biscuits” and 3 little bones will appear on the screen. It does things like flowers, hats, etc… all to the different numbers. It also plays music and says hello when you press the phone buttons.

Amelia does like it and it definitely keeps her busy but it won’t stop her going after our phones if she gets the chance.

Lovely referred to by a friend as the most annoying toy ever (she’s not wrong) this little birdy is getting a lot of love in our house. It’s soft head and plastic body make it idea of cuddling, chewing and banging on the floor. It has 3 songs and 10 melodies and lots of different phrases that almost impossible to tell what it’s actually saying but I think between the textures, singing and flashing lights it’s a bit of sensory playground for babies.

It’s actually recommended for babies 3 months+ so we were a little late buying it for her but I wanted something small that I could take out with us to keep her happy.

My parents bought this ball for Amelia for Christmas and she was terrified of it, I kept trying her with it but for a long time she was having none of it. I’ve tried it again now that she can crawl and she’s much more interested. It’s a great little toy, it moves around in a haphazard motion to encourage babies to crawl after it and it will never go in a straight line to make sure they keep moving.

It’s also interactive and asks baby to press the corresponding buttons to match the colours, shapes and animals. At the moment Amelia likes to chase it and also likes to hold the spinning yellow bird on the top so that it can’t spin (whilst it is trying to spin it makes the most god awful clicking noise but she won’t let it spin for love nor money)

Another toy that Amelia was scared of a little while but she loves it now, it also moves and goes in all different directions to encourage babies to crawl after it. It’s primarily a shape sorter and once the turtle has shuffled along for a little while he will stop and the shapes will pop off and go rolling away.

The idea is for baby to collect them and put them back in the correct holes and start again. The reality at the moment is that Amelia just puts the shapes in her mouth and chews them. She also loves to press the button on top of the turtle to make it crawl regardless of whether the shapes are in or not. She does crawl after it, just to press the button again so we are 50/50 with it’s purpose at the moment.

The reason we chose this as a shape sorter is because we like the idea that as she starts to learn she can put the shapes back on herself, with other traditional shape sorters you always have to empty the box out for them to start again whereas once she gets the hang of this, she can do this one all by herself.

Another from the My Pal range and it’s a goodun! This table literally has so many features it could have a blog post all of it’s own (let me know if this is something you would like), so I will run through some of them for you in a list; it sings the alphabet and numbers, tells colours, shapes, phrases, plays nursery rhymes, plays different instrument sounds and can be changed to a different language.

Phew! This thing does so much, you can have it in either learning or grooving mode by flipping the book in the middle. In learning mode you have the letters, numbers, colours, shapes and phrases, in grooving mode you have the music, instrument sounds and nursery rhymes. Our table can be switched to French but I also believe there is a Spanish/English version too it just depends where you buy it from. The legs are detachable too so it can be more of a flat play table for babies who aren’t able to stand yet however Amelia wasn’t really interested in it until she could stand up at it and now she just goes to town with it. Banging all the buttons and her favourite thing right now is just to flip the book back and forth and watch the lights flash.

It’s great for helping her with her balance and she can stand at it unaided now however it does have a tendency to slide when she puts too much weight against it and she also tends to overstretch and topple over so she’s never left alone with it.

Just by looking at the picture below can you guess what Amelia’s favourite thing about this toy is? Yep, chewing the tail, she will force the whole thing in her mouth and just suck on it, it’s a bit awkward sometimes.

Another learning toy here, this time focused on letters, by pressing each letter you will get “A is for apple, I like eating apples” and so on, press the song button and it will sing “one two buckle my shoe” and pull it along by the lead and it will sing. One of the things I like about it is that it will only sing whilst it is being pulled, if you stop moving it will stop and say “press a letter button or pull me along” or something like “more more take me for a walk” to encourage babies to continue moving to get it to keep singing.

At first I was a little worried about the cord on the lead being a choking hazard but actually it isn’t really long enough to cause any problem and we certainly have never had any trouble with it.

Amelia has been so desperate to stand for a few weeks now and she will find anything she possibly can to pull herself up. She’s also very keen on walking when you hold her hands so we decided to get her a walker. At the moment she’s more interested in throwing the blocks out and trying to climb inside it but she will walk a little with it when assisted.

We chose this walker because we liked the traditional element of it being wooden and also I’ve wanted to get her some wooden building blocks for ages so this was two birds with one stone really and it’s been great. Super easy to put together too, I even did it by myself whilst hubby was at work.

Decoy Remote

Remember I said earlier that we bought Amelia a mobile phone to keep her away from ours but it didn’t really work, we think that’s because it doesn’t look like ours. She has the same fascination with the TV remotes so enter, old unused decoy remote. This isn’t a toy we have bought her, it’s an old remote for a TV we don’t have anymore that we found in the shed.

Gave it a wash, removed the batteries and she’s happy as larry. She will chew it, play with it, wave it around, I swear she thinks she’s won and gotten one over on us but as long as it keeps her happy and away from the actual remotes then everyone’s a winner.

So there we go, an updated look at the toys we are using daily now that Amelia is older and more active. She does still play with her other toys but we like to rotate them because let’s be fair they can get very tedious for us parents after a while.

These are all brilliant for different reasons and it all really depends on where your child is at with their development as to whether some of these will be appropriate for them yet but I just wanted to give you a look inside our toy box as it stands at the moment.

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